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I was lucky enough to get two copies of Engage! by Brian Solis. So, I'm giving away a copy on this blog. To be eligible to win, leave a comment (be sure to include your email address).

The book is a comprehensive collection of philosophy and advice on social media, strategy, brands, and business integration. What I appreciate are the info graphics that accompany most of the chapters. Brian has collaborated with Jesse Thomas over the years to produce compelling visuals of ideas. One you may be familiar with the Conversation Prism that has probably appeared in more powerpoint presentations about social media than any other graphic.

My favorite part of the book is Chapter 21: The Social Media Marketing Compass: Creating A Social Plan.

Solis notes in his book that his inspiration for the Social Media Marketing Compass was the term "moral compass," because the plan should include more than tactics. It should also define an organization's value system. Here's the definition:

"A Social Media Marketing Compass points a brand in a physical and experiential director to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, influencers, and where they interact and seek guidance online."

Jesse Thomas created the information graphic below to illustrate the full concept. The book contains a detailed explanation. The brand is at the center. The concentric circles include players (stakeholders); platforms which are places where people connect online and off; Channels (activity on platforms) and finally Emotions.

That's my colleague David Neff who co-founded an organization called Lights. Camera. Help., a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to encouraging other nonprofit and cause-driven organizations to use film and video to tell their stories.

David wants to know if your organization has a film that promotes a cause and a winner. If so, he wants you to submit your cause-driven films to the
2010 Lights.
Camera. Help. Festival now open to submissions. All entries are free.
Get in
your entries before June 30! Visit the site to learn more!

I'm giving away a copy of "Inbound Marketing" by Brian Halligan (Author), Dharmesh Shah (Author), David Meerman Scott (Foreword). I discovered it because of a charity challenge they're running on Twitter to raise awareness of their book, plus raise some money to help Room To Read. I'm a fan of Room To Read, so I asked Dharmesh for a copy of the book to give away to nonprofits, and he agreed - so if you want a chance to win, leave a comment on how your nonprofit could benefit from in-bound marketing. And of course, if you want to help out Room to Read, send this tweet.

The definition of Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers. You can read a more detailed definition here. I heard about the challenge because Laura Fitton posted this tweet. I guess you could say it is an example of in-bound marketing.

Now, a few critical thoughts about their charity challenge. Here's how it is described:

The Inbound Marketing Challenge

The Challenge: Get as many people as possible to tweet a link to this article, especially the people in the list below by midnight (ET) on Sunday, February 21 2010.

The Cause: Room To Read a not-for-profit organization that transforms the lives of millions of children by focusing on literacy.

How It Works: We will donate $Z to Room To Read (up to a whopping $10,000) based on the following formula:

Example: Lets say 20 people on the list below retweet the
article (more on how to make this happen a little later). Then, each
retweet is worth $0.20 ($0.01 x 20). If the article gets 10,000
retweets, that’s $2,000. If all 50 people below retweet and we get
20,000 retweets, that’s 50 cents per tweet and 10,000 smackeroos for
Room To Read. Cool, right?

Here’s the diabolical part. My guess is many of you know a
few people on the list below. Enough to where you can tweet them, and
they’ll listen/respond. I even made it easy for you, just use the
convenient link next to each of their names. (Yes, I’m just a helpful
guy).

Do Your Part: Retweet this article and try to get as many
people on the list below to retweet it too. It takes just a minute for
you and them. The more that tweet, the more that hear about and the
donation amount goes up.

Before I launch into some of my criticism, I want to applaud Hubspot for experimenting with different ways to promote their book and help a charity. My criticism below is intended to help such efforts have more impact on the charities.

I've been reflecting on the importance of authenticity in CSR programs that my business partner at Zoetica Geoff Livingston wrote about the other day. I think cause-related marketing efforts could use a little bit more authenticity too or at least balance profit motives and altruism.

This charity challenge is more focused on getting the word out on the book than helping the charity. Why? I think they've set the bar too high for the number of re-tweets and influencer tweets and bar too low for what they'll donate to the charity. The should have donated something like $1 per retweet and put a ceiling on it.

There is also no psychological or emotional motivation to re-tweet. Plus, the influencer list is a not necessarily a list of Room To Read's influencers (and in fact, as of this writing, RoomToRead had not even tweeted about this challenge.) The influencer list is a list of influencers with reach who may be not the attention stream to look at all the replies where as RoomToRead influencers may have less reach, but more affinity with the charity.

The formula to trigger a donation is complicated. The amount donated per retweet is based on the number of influencers who retweet the message and the total amount donated is multiplied by the number of retweets. So, if 20 influencers tweet and there are 1000 re-tweets, they will donate $.20 cents per re-tweet or $200.

As of this writing they had 298 tweets and 11 people on the influencer list retweeted. (According to the TweetMeme Widget on the post - which could be underestimated) So, let's see - that's 298 x .11 cents = $32.78 donated to the charity. I guess if they sold one or two books, they're even.

What can we learn about the right formula from previous efforts?

Tweetsgiving which asked people to retweet a message of gratitude in a 48 hour period over Thanksgiving generated over 21,000 tweets. I know it is a different animal - a campaign implemented by a charity without a for-profit marketing motive lurking beneath.

The fundraising campaign added some extra buzz, a sponsor, Ice cream
maker Häagen-Dazs, willing to pay for any Twitter user who tweets out
the support for the cause. The sponsorship worked liked this:
Häagen-Dazs was offering to donate $1 per tweet for the first 500
people that tweet everyday with the hashtag #HelpHoneyBees. The money
was donated to UC Davis research project to further look into Colony
Collapse Disorder, as well as help fund the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee
Haven, which aims to teach people about how to create their own
honeybee farms.

I got some of the back story form Julio Vasconcellos, VP for Business Development, for the Experience Project which operates TwitCause. "I think the #HelpHoneyBees hashtag campaign was very effective and helped
raise $7k for the honey bee research as well as get Häagen-Dazs some
great exposure around the contributions they've been making to the
cause (and of course, to their brand)."

For those that want the numbers:

6,818 tweets sent out during the official week (several more before) by 3,294 unique Twitterers

Total followers reached was slightly over 5MM (these are non-unique
followers, basically a sum of all the followers of each of those
3kTwitterers)

Total Twitter impressions generated 12.4MM (here an "Twitter
impression" is anytime a follower is presented with a tweet - if I have
100 followers and tweet twice, that's 200 "Twitter impressions")

Häagen-Dazs donated $7,000 to UC Davis for research into colony collapse disorder which is afflicting honey bee populations

On November 19th 2009, at The Paley Center for Media’s International Council Event, ThinkSocial will be recognizing three outstanding examples of innovation, featuring – an individual, an initiative and a collaboration between institutions, which together represent powerful models for how social media can be used to address global problems.

The online conference is for the "Tech Responsible" individual
within any nonprofit. It is a learning event to help you better understand how to
manage technology. With 2 tracks and experts presenting on topics critical to your
organization, you are sure to come away better able to succeed with technology.

I'm honored to have a chapter in the book about ROI and you can hear geek out about it here. I'll be presenting about ROI as it pertains to investing in
technology infrastructure or systems, not just social media. I did a panel presentation at the NTC conference in April on the chapter as well.

I finally got a chance to meet Manny Hernandez, author written the "Ning for Dummies Book." He is founder of The Diabetes Hands Foundation, a non profit
that operates two niche social networks for people touched by diabetes:
TuDiabetes (in English, with close to 8,200 members) and EsTuDiabetes
(with close to 3,200 members, which is turning it into the main
community destination for Spanish-speaking diabetics). Both have been
runaway success stories. You can read more here.

A few weeks I ran a book giveaway for five copies of his book. You had to leave a comment indicating your goals, audience, and how you'd measure success of your Ning Community on this post which also includes a round up of Ning resources.

The lucky winners (selected randomly) of the Ning for Dummies book giveaway are:

In about 8 weeks, I'm moving to California and need to pair down my book collection. I'm looking for nonprofit libraries that could cover the cost of postage for a box of books in exchange for a donation of some of my books. They cover a variety of topics, web technology, social media, training, evaluation, information design, management, and etc. Drop a note in the comments.

Congratulations to the winners and all who submitted an app! The Change the Web Challenge such a
huge success! Read more here.

But what's really cool, one of the winners, Zemanta, had decided to pay its award forward. It launched a challenge to bloggers to "Blog For A Cause" throughout May in aid of global charities. Zemanta and partner Weber Shandwick's Social Innovation Greenhouse will donate $6000 prize to most blogged about charities

Bloggers who want to take part should go to http://www.zemanta.com/bloggingforacause for details on the challenge, and start blogging about their favorite charity right now. Zemanta will split the prize money between the charities that are most blogged about over the course of the next four weeks.

The act of taking responsibility for building a network and forging connections between groups or people. Maybe simply has introducing the right hand to the left hand .. to increase connectedness. It also may focus on growing the number of people in a network by connecting to new people or organizations. June Holley is an expert on the topic, check her out.

Network Weaving is used with networks of partners or organizations. But, can you take those principles and use it to connect people in your own professional network?

So, here is a possible example. \

Last week, a colleague, Steve Heye, let me know about some of his recent work, including a training he did for YMCA folks about using social networking tools to build their careers. He asked for some feedback for his excellent presentation. I suggested that he look into Dan Schawebel's work and he his new book, Me 2.0.

Well, Dan sent me a review copy (and I had already purchased a copy), so now I have to copies. Plus, I'm downsizing for a move across the country. So, I'm giving one copy to Steve when I see him at NTC at the end of the month and the other copy - well - leave a comment on why you want you want this book and I'll pick a random winner.

BusinessWeek innovation blog reached out to its readers on Facebook, Twitter, and its blog asking for suggestions for social media innovators for 2009. They got a lot of suggestions and decided to create four different categories (see below.) I was selected as "eyes to the world." The profile is here.

I was asked to do a brief video talking about what I thought the next innovation on the web is - you can see here where I talked about how these new tools are allowing people to come together and do things for charities out of love at a grand scale, not just money. I also talked about the next innovation of the social web - as a platform to do good.

There's some details in the profile that could stand to corrected, but later for that.

Congratulations to the other three folks who received recognition.

1) Toolmasters: Imaginative techies whose schemes and applications open new doors and lead to insights. Our toolmaster is Noah Brier, who works days in New York at Barbarian Group, an interactive marketing shop.

2) Eyes to the World: People innovating with social media to help others. Beth Kanter is our pick. She uses every avenue on the World Wide Web to raise funds for Cambodian children
through the Sharing Foundation. And she shares what
she learns with nonprofits everywhere. Kanter, 52, is also a Net
pioneer. A one-time employee of the Boston Symphony, she plunged into
the Internet in the early 1990s. She started tapping friends—and
friends of friends—through her blog while adopting two Cambodian
children in 2000.

3) Crowdstrappers: Entrepreneurs or consultants who harness new
approaches in social media to reposition or invigorate
businesses—either their clients' or their own. Here we select Eric Brown, who has turned his apartment business
in Royal Oak, Mich., into a social media laboratory. Brown, 49, has no
training in social media. But he believes in openness and hopes that
the ease of communicating through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, can
turn him into a better landlord.

4) Hidden heroes: These are people working inside old-style
enterprises and use social media to change the culture and operations.
Our choice is Scott Monty, who heads up social media at Ford Motor.

Gee, wish I didn't have to hop a plane to the West Coast all day today - would love to revel in this ...

This past week has been about the lightest blogging week ever. I've had time offline, with family, and just relaxing. It's also that time of year when you think about setting personal goals or making resolutions for change. I've been thinking a lot of those, mostly internal - personal improvement and professional goals for my work, blog, and professional learning.

But, given how the economy has changed and that we are about to usher in a new era of change, it is also a great idea to set some more external goals ... how might you make a change in your community, neighborhood, or the world.

Need some motivation? The Case Foundation has just launched the "Change Begins With Me" contest. They are calling on citizens to make a commitment over the next year for positive change. The winner will get to attend the Inaugural Ceremony and Hawaii Inaugural Ball!

Here's the description from the Case Foundation Web Site:

It’s easy to enter – just 2 simple steps:

Think about what you can do to help your community

Share that commitment with us for a chance to win!

What you Get:

An Inauguration trip for two and a unique opportunity to serve on MLK Day! Package includes:

two tickets to the Inaugural Ceremony & the Hawaii Inaugural Ball

three-nights hotel stay

airfare for you and a guest to the Nation’s Capitol

a Flip video cam

Want some guidance? Read this blog post from Jean Case about how she's thinking about it.

I'm hoping citizens everywhere take
moment and truly reflect on the 250 characters. It won't help if people
"over-think" this or make too much of this, but we are asking for real
commitments. For some, the commitment may be small or simple but may be
the FIRST experience of "jumping in" to make a difference. For
activists, the 250 characters may flow easily. And then there will be
everyone else. A little sweating. A little eye-rolling. Hopefully, a
little smile. But hopefully the bottom line is that we'll all be better
off when the 250 characters are completed and we celebrate the close of
next year with commitments that have been fulfilled as one small step
toward a stronger, healthier nation.

I've been thinking about goals for 2009 and one of them fits into this contest, so here's mine:

I will continue to evangelize this idea and how it in action "Be A Geek Who Gives" - their time, skills, money, or other resources to a charity, cause, or nonprofit. Many small contributions in this way can make a difference.

You're looking at widget created by Lend4Health as part their participation in the Ideablob contest to win $10,000 for new small business ideas. They have enough votes to become a finalist, and they're one of eight content entrants in the "final showdown." If Lend4Health can accumulate the most votes between now and midnight Central time on October 31 (see countdown), they will win $10,000 for Lend4Health!

Here's what they plan to do with the money:

With this money, I plan to improve and expand the Lend4Health concept so that more children and families can benefit. Your vote also helps get the word out about the biomedical approach to treating autism -- an idea that certainly deserves to be heard!

I was all set to vote for them and went over to the site. You need to register and go through a verification process. Then I looked at the other projects and noticed Nate Ritter - whose used Twitter during the San Diego fires also had an idea.

I've been working with the wonderful Knight News Challenge team--Kristen Taylor, Jose Zamora, Heidi Miller, Robertson Adams, Marc Fest and others (under the apt leadership of the innovative Gary Kebbel)
to help improve the range, quality and diversity of this year's
applicants for the 2008-09 News Challenge (which will give away roughly
$5MM to support open source projects that move forward local discourse
and sharing/discussion around news, community, social media,
visualization.)

Inspired by TechStars and YCombinator, the Garage creates a (drupal platform)
community where current and potential applications for funding can
enter their ideas, share comments and peer review, and request mentor
support to improve their application before they submit it.

The Garage is open as of today; the KNC08 will start taking applications as of September 2nd; close is November 1st

If
you are a newsie, a social media person, a social justice person using
online tools to improve the world, a hyperlocal fan, or any sort of
interested party (or a previous applicant) come and check it out and
look around.

The We Media Awards
recognize Game Changers: people, projects, ideas and organizations
leading change and inspiring a better world through media. Game
Changers lead society to knowledge. They inspire involvement and action
through media.

I was looking for an excuse to embed this slideshow. It provides ten tips for cutting back your budget while promoting your presence online. But, it's geared for business and for-profits. (Not many of have television advertising budgets ...)

Most charities have a strong desire to improve their ability to use the
Internet to communicate more effectively with supporters, volunteers,
and potential donors.

But at a time when charity budgets are particularly tight, few
organizations have the resources to invest in crafting new online
strategies.

There are, however, tools and tricks that can help nonprofit leaders
improve their presence on the Internet without having to spend a lot of
money. Find out what you can do to reach more people online without
breaking the bank.

Jonathon Colman and I will be live on the chat to answer questions. We'll be focusing on some inexpensive ways to incorporate social media and Jonathon will have lots of advice about overall web presence tips.

What's your advice about building your online presence on a tight budget? How would you adapt some of the advice in the slideshow for nonprofits and smaller organizations?

Nancy Schwartz wants you to help her select the winners of the 2008 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards, to be announced in July. The tagline finalists you see here have been carefully culled from the more than 1,050 taglines submitted to Getting Attention Tagline Awards. Hurry, the voting closing on Friday, June 20th.

Last week Ben Rigby of Mobile Voter, and the folks from Rock the Vote gave me a copy of their a new book
Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0
Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth for a book giveaway on my
blog.

Why would we want a free book? 1. We are so cheap that more than half
our budget is in-kind (we're the largest food pantry and community
kitchen in the county plus about a million other things)so free is just
about right, 2. We are so slammed, (numbers on meals and food are up
30-60% depending on the demographic) there is no way anyone would be
allowed to go to the book store, in fact I hear them looking for me to
come do who knows what, and 3. I had to define the term blog in a board
meeting...3 months in a row. Has any of them read it, no. Has any staff
or mgmt read it.....I shall comment no further, but I need some help! I
shall use it to dominate the Web 2.0 for poverty, hunger and homeless
advocacy and change. The bludgeoning idea is brilliant too....

Maureen Mayer is the Finance, Information and Technology staff person at The Cooperative Feeding Program in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. It's the county’s largest food pantry and community kitchen, and they do so much more than just hand out turkeys on Thanksgiving to the homeless. You've no doubt noticed that food prices are soaring and this has kept Maureen and other staff members who work at the agency very busy.

It isn't a thick book, it's a quick read, but not fluff. The book gives you a great over and introduction to Facebook, followed by introductory getting started. The chapter on privacy explained a lot about what you can and can't control. Chapter 6 - Your Facebook Strategy that talks about how much time is needed before you see results and some time savers is a gem. There is also a chapter that explains Facebook No's No's - like what does or does not violate the terms of service or etiquette.

So, I thought I'd read it on my return plane ride, jot down a few notes, and give the book way. Well, it was so filled with practical and useful information that selfishly I wanted to keep it for myself. So, I emailed him and told him I was going to come clean with my readers and let them - oh no, not giving this one away. But Jesse generously offered a second book for a reader giveaway.

So, here's the deal. Leave a comment on why you want this book and how you plan to change the world with Facebook - or whatever - and I'll use a random number generator to pick someone. You have to agree to write a review on Amazon. You have until next Friday, April 18th, Noon EST.